There is a rumour circulating about a 4th park for Universal Orlando and it looks like Nintendo building might be being held off in Universal Studios whilst this new park is considered.

To recap, the Super Nintendo World construction was going to include the Mushroom Kingdom as a central hub with a recreation of Princess Peach’s Castle, a Mario Kart AR attraction, a Yoshi unimover experience, various dining spots and shops and a Donkey Kong Tropical Island themed space complete with a Donkey Kong indoor-outdoor coaster.

There has been no activity since the permits were filed. This is unusual and likely indicative that the plan for Super Nintendo World at Universal Orlando Resort has changed. Credit where credit is due, the folks over at Theme Park University were the first to pick up on this, as well as publicly state that the Nintendo plans that leaked that included Kirby and The Legend of Zelda were outdated by the time they had been uncovered. That’s right, the permits filed in May, June and July of 2017 did not include Zelda or Kirby.

So what’s the plan for Super Nintendo World at Universal Orlando? It’s still being developed, but the intent is rumored to be to transition Super Nintendo World over to Universal Orlando’s rumored third theme park (or fourth, if you include Volcano Bay). A source has disclosed that the Mushroom Kingdom will still serve as the central hub for this third park.

Glad to see the progress below as figures from the sites this week have been worrying.

Dubai Parks and Resorts — which includes Motiongate Dubai, Bollywood Parks Dubai, and Legoland Dubai — reported 2.3 million visitors last year, with 796,000 coming in the fourth quarter, when the weather is better in the United Arab Emirates. However, that works out to fewer than 9,000 visitors a day across the three parks during their busiest quarter.

DXB Entertainments, the company that owns the Dubai Parks and Resorts complex, has announced that it lost Dh1.11 billion (US$302 million) in 2017

The Dubai parks averaged slightly more than 2,000 visitors per park per day over the year last year. We do not know the actual breakdown between the parks, however.

If this project comes to fruition then it will be the biggest theme park resort in Central Asia. Land clearing has begun for Stage 1 of the project.

With many years of experience building theme parks, in particular, Universal Studios Singapore, Sanderson Group specialists from Australia are preparing a project for a modern park, which has no analogues in Central Asia.

The construction of the park is divided into 3 stages.

I stage: 1st quarter of 2018 - the second quarter of 2019. Construction of World Street Shopping, Amazonia, Dancing birds "Humo", Lotus flowers, a fountain and attractions.

II stage: 3 quarter of 2019 - the third quarter of 2020. Construction of indoor and outdoor water park, Crystal Tower, water and land-based family and children's attractions, roller coaster.

III stage: the 3rd quarter of 2020 - the 4th quarter of 2021. Construction of a hotel zone.

Ride installation has begun according to the most recent press release from Dream Island.

The first phase of the installation of attractions began in Dream Island park, it includes the installation of ultra-reliable individual foundations for each of the 29 objects. The work will last 120 days. During this period of time 4 645 piles length of 70 km will be used, it will be unique and innovation technical work in its scope. The production of attractions has already begun, the firsts of them will be brought in Moscow this spring.

The laboriousness of the installation of foundations for attractions is associated with the peculiarities of the soil in the Nagatinskaya floodplain where the Dream Island Park is located and the different magnitude of dynamic loads from attractions. As part of the foundation of the thematic zone, an unprecedented scale work will be carried out to install 6,800 reinforced concrete piles, 2 155 of which have already been installed. The remaining 4 645 piles will be installed for 29 rides.

There will be unique and the most modern attractions in Dream Island park, which have never been presented in Russia. One of the first attractions of this level and the most exciting is the Dark Ride Coaster with incredible steep turns. Its trucks are able to rapidly accelerate and develop speeds of up to 80 km / h. The whole route of the hill is completely themed from the landing zone until the end of the fascinating trip. The world's leading developer and manufacturer of high-quality attractions for amusement parks - Intamin Amusement Rides (Liechtenstein) is engaged in the design and installation of the Coaster.

According to a recent filing, work on the TRON Lightcycle Power Run roller coaster at the Magic Kingdom is set to be completed just in time for Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary in 2021.

With construction starting February 6th, 2018, the filing claims the work will be complete by August 16th, 2021 (barring any delays). The attraction should open in Tomorrowland somewhere around that time.

New artwork plus Disney put a stop to the rumours that they were heading for a name change for Hollywood Studios.

In response to the recent unsubstantiated rumors swirling around the internet that the name of Disney’s Hollywood Studios would be changing, Disney stated today that “the Disney’s Hollywood Studios name will remain the same for the foreseeable future since we are immersing our guests in a place where imagined worlds of Hollywood unfold around them from movies and music, to television and theater”.

DPR have released their visitor figures from 2017. They are, not surprisingly, pretty poor and they have made a lot of "overall" figures to not declare paying park customers.

Though individual figures are not provided for the three main theme parks at the integrated resort – Legoland Dubai, Bollywood Parks and Motiongate movie park – that means an annual average attendance of less than 800,000. Numbers increased significantly in the fourth quarter of the year, when 796,000 visits were recorded across the resort, a 66% leap compared to the previous quarter. It is not known how many came just to visit the Riverland dining and retail district.

They are also restructuring and backing out the decisions to split the business operations which were made in early 2017. It's a cost-saving exercise and will have implications on how the Six Flags is operated.

Meanwhile DXB has announced an operational restructuring of the company, combining the Theme Parks and Retail & Hospitality divisions that were separated earlier in 2017. Ahmad Hussain, previously general manager of Theme Parks, has been appointed deputy CEO, whilst former GM of Retail & Hospitality Ahmed AlRayyes is now chief commercial officer.

Legoland California is preparing for princesses, knights and wizards in its upcoming Castle Hotel, opening April 27, 2018.This new 250 room hotel will feature highly detailed rooms, children’s activities and Legoland California’s first full-service sit down restaurant. This three-story hotel will offer three different room themes: Royal Princess, Magic Wizard and Knights and Dragons. There are also 20 suites on property as well.

There has been some news regarding funding which seems to have put the project back on track.

VTB Bank opened a credit line for "Dream Island" holding company in the amount of 37 billion rubles for a period of 7 years. The funds will be spent on the construction of the first stage of the "Dream Island" park, which includes an indoor theme park, an urban promenade with a shopping and entertainment area and a landscape park. The total cost of the first stage of the project is 81 billion rubles. It includes the value of the land plot and the amount of investments in the amount of 43 billion rubles (including 37 billion rubles of VTB), intended for construction, acquisition of rides and working capital.

The main construction works of the indoor part of the park are planned to be completed by the end of 2018, the interior decoration and landscaping will be finished in the middle of 2019.